


you love me, but you don't know it yet

by bothsexuals



Category: Happy Death Day (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothsexuals/pseuds/bothsexuals
Summary: What if Carter also got sent into an alternate-universe-loop by Sissy's blast in Happy Death Day 2U?
Relationships: Carter Davis/Theresa "Tree" Gelbman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. another time and place

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. This could be better and more well thought out but like, I don't feel like doing all that, so take this. 
> 
> Title and chapter titles from Happy Accidents by Saint Motel.

Carter felt himself slip away as Sissy blasted everyone across the room. He looked at Tree, extended his hand to reach towards her, their fingertips touched and then—

Carter opened his eyes. He wasn’t in his bed, and there was someone looming over him. 

“Get up,” the voice said. 

“Ryan?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. 

“Asshole,” the voice scoffed. His vision finally came into focus and he saw Tree standing over him, wearing his shirt. 

“Tree?” 

“Random asshole,” she greeted him back, “where are my pants?” 

“What?” 

“My pants,” she repeated, gesturing at her naked legs, “where did you put them?” 

He glanced at his desk and sure enough there they were, neatly folded. But it couldn’t be. 

“What day is it?” he asked in a small voice. 

“Where are my pants?” Tree repeated, her voice growing sterner by the second. He limply gestured towards the desk and she huffed as she went to put them on. He scrambled to find his phone and checked the date—It couldn’t be. It was. Monday 18th. Oh, fuck. 

  


***

  


“Tree,” he called, following her as she strode across the quad. 

“Leave me alone, creep,” she replied. 

“I need your help,” he said, “or you need mine. Fuck, I don’t know.” 

“Jesus Christ, I slept with a crazy dude,” he heard her mutter. 

“Tree, please,” he sighed miserably. He missed her an insane amount. He’d barely had her for a day and he missed her so goddamn much. 

“Listen, fuck-o,” she said, finally turning around to look at him, “I don’t know why you think following me around is a good idea, but I promise you you’ll change your mind once I cut your dick off.” 

_Ouch._

“Alright,” he sadly resigned, “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” 

“Finally,” she sighed and turned on her heels, leaving Carter miserable and alone. 

  


***

  


“You think you’re _what?_ ” Ryan incredulously asked. 

“I’m in a loop,” Carter said, “either that or I’m just going to die. Or Tree is. I really hope it’s not Tree.”

“Who the hell is Tree?” Ryan muttered. “And follow up question, are you insane?” 

“I’m not. It’s your fault, dickhead. Your stupid Sissy did this.” 

“Hey, Sissy is _not_ stupid! And how do you know about Sissy?” 

“You turned her on… tomorrow, and it sent me here. Where Tree doesn’t know or like me. And everything’s just slightly different, like it’s a… different universe or something.” 

“Who the hell is Tree?” Ryan muttered again. 

A glint from the desk caught Carter’s eye. Of course, Tree’s bracelet. He smiled to himself as he picked it up and put it in his pocket. 

“Look, just fix this, okay?” he said, “And meet me in your lab at three.” 

“You’re insane!” Ryan called after him as he left. Carter couldn’t deny it was pretty much exactly how he felt as he headed to the lunch quad, looking for Tree just as he had the day before—also known as _the same day_ —except he hadn’t found her then as she was apparently busy confronting her sixteen-times-killer, but now there she sat, half-listening as her brunette friend (maybe?) said something to the girl sitting beside her. He didn’t have time to call out to her before said girl stood up abruptly and crashed into him, the chocolate milk on her tray spilling all over Tree. 

“Oh, god, Tree, I’m so sorry,” he said, grabbing all the napkins he could and attempting to clean her up. 

“Wait, you two know each other?” the brunette said with a sneer. 

“Yes,” he absent-mindedly replied, as Tree quickly exclaimed, “No!”

“We had a class together last year, that’s all,” he corrected himself. Right, this Tree wanted nothing to do with him. 

“I just came by to give you this,” he said, fishing the bracelet out of his pocket, “sorry again.” 

Tree took the bracelet from him, her eyes going soft for just a second, an echo of the grateful look she’d given him the last time he’d given it back to her. She’d told him later that day just how much that bracelet meant to her, and how much it meant that he had apparently never neglected to give it back to her in any of the reboots she’d lived (and died) through. 

“Can I help you with anything?” she said then, all softness gone. 

“No, I—” he sighed “—sorry again about the mess.” He left, forcing himself not to look back at her despite how much he wanted to, despite how much he missed Tree, _his_ Tree, the one who’d told him she was his girlfriend, _kinda_ , and who’d laughed when he’d dorkily tried to cheer her up. The Tree that was much happier with herself, that wasn’t still punishing herself for the pain that she felt. 

“What a douchebag,” he heard someone say as he walked away from the girl he thought he might be falling in love with. He really needed to figure this out. 

  


***

  


Samar, Dre and Ryan concluded he must be stuck in a parallel universe, sent there by Sissy’s blast, and that there must be a way to send him back the way he came.

“This is gonna be a matter of trial and error,” Dre said, “we’re gonna have to try a bunch of algorithms until we find one that works.”

“Fine, do that then,” he sighed. He didn’t have the strength to listen. His mind kept drifting back to—Tree. Fuck. Was she going to get murdered? What if she didn’t get rebooted this time? How could he have been so focused on the fact that she didn’t like him back—probably didn’t even remember his name—as to forget that she was going to _die_ that day? 

“I gotta go,” he said, and quickly scrambled to his feet. 

“What the fuck?” he heard Samar mutter as he ran out of the room. 

  


***

  


Carter felt like a creep, waiting outside of Tree’s sorority house, but it was what he had to do. She’d told him the night before that the first few times she had gotten killed were on her way to or at a party, so he had to wait for her to go there and stop the killer. Somehow. 

He was almost drifting off to sleep by the time he heard the door click open and saw her step out. She was wearing a short, white dress and she looked absolutely gorgeous, as well as completely pissed off with the world. 

He followed her, doing his best to be sneaky, shivering when he saw her step into a tunnel, inspecting a music box that played _Happy Birthday_. This was it. He ran to her. 

“Tree,” he said, trying not to startle her. 

“Shit,” she hissed, turning towards him. Well, that hadn’t worked. “What the fuck, creep?” 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just—you’re about to—” he heard a rustling and grabbed her wrist out of instinct, his other hand flying to the knife in his pocket. 

“Ew,” Tree said, shaking his hand off. He didn’t have time to feel bad about it, hearing another rustling sound, closer this time. 

“We have to go,” he said, “Tree, please trust me. We have to go.” He extended a hand towards hers, pleading. 

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes, “if you’ll shut up.” She grabbed his hand and he quickly led her out of the tunnel. 

“Don’t be scared,” he warned her before taking the knife out of his pocket, “if we make it out of this, I promise I’ll explain ev—” 

The last thing he saw were Tree’s wide eyes, her mouth opening in a horrified scream, and then—

“Get up.” 

He sat up. 

“No,” he hissed, tears stinging his eyes, “no, no, no, fuck no.” 

“Dude, are you okay?” Tree asked as he scurried around the room. He grabbed her pants and handed them to her, then turned around to give her privacy. As she got dressed, tears started to flow from his eyes. 

“I didn’t save you,” he brokenly said. 

“What?” 

“I can’t do this,” he mumbled to himself, “I can’t do this.” 

“Whatever, dude,” Tree scoffed. 

Carter let himself fall to the floor when he heard the door close behind her, and allowed himself to sob until his head ached. 

  


***

  


He told Ryan about Sissy. Ryan believed him when he showed him the 12:01 a.m. spike and he and his nerd squad got to work. Carter found Tree at lunch and she snapped at him as he reveled in the way their fingers brushed when he gave her bracelet back. She looked at him like he was crazy when he told her Lori was going to kill her and likely didn’t give it a second thought. 

Carter went to the tunnel before she could that night. He picked up the music box and tossed it as far as he could, hearing it break into pieces. 

“Bad idea, asshole,” he heard a voice from behind him. And then something cold and sharp touched his throat. 

  


***

  


“Get up.” 

He went through the motions again, this time able to keep his tears at bay. He stopped Tree before she could leave his room to give her the bracelet and she smiled thankfully at him for only a second, her guard just a little bit down when no one else was around. He told Ryan, Dre and Samar, and Dre pointed out that their research would be pointless if they were starting it over everytime the day was rebooted. 

“Everything reboots but me,” Carter realized. “You’ve gotta tell me the algorithms. All the failed ones. So I can tell you and you’ll start from there.”

“You sure you can remember all that?” Ryan asked. 

“Dude, come on,” Carter scoffed. He wasn’t as sure as he sounded. But he’d have to make it work. Tree’s life depended on it. 

  


***

  


“Going to the party?” he asked Tree, intercepting her on the way there. 

“Yeah,” she replied with a frown, “are you?” 

He shrugged. “Nothing better to do. Can I walk with you?” 

“Whatever.”

He curled his fingers around the knife in his pocket. 

“So, how’s it going, Tree?” he asked, desperate to have a normal conversation with her, even under the more-than-pressing circumstances. 

She sighed and stopped in her tracks, turning around to face him, “Listen—”

“Carter.” 

“Carter. You’re hot, in a nerdy kinda way, but this isn’t happening again, okay?”

“We didn’t—we didn’t have sex,” he corrected her, “and I’m not trying to—shit.” 

She frowned. “What?” 

He pushed her out of the way as the killer lunged at her, knife drawn. He tackled them to the ground and took advantage of their momentary confusion to tear off their mask—he needed to find out who it was, in case his flimsy plan didn’t work and he had to do this again. 

“Asshole!” Lori screamed as soon as her identity was revealed, and Tree gasped. 

“Lori?! What the fuck?” 

“Don’t do this,” Carter pleaded, still managing to keep her pinned down. 

“Stay out of this!” Lori hissed, breaking free from Carter’s hold. 

“No way,” Carter hissed back, fighting back with everything he had. 

“Fine,” Lori said with a grin. He felt something sharp poke his stomach. Fuck. “Then die.”

The knife pierced his skin as Tree’s distressed scream of his name filled the air, and then he was back in Ryan’s bed. 

“Get up.” 

  


***

  


The next few days, or rather, the next few _day_ , went by somehow quickly. He’d wake up to Tree’s disgusted stare, tell Ryan, Dre and Samar, catch them up on the failed algorithms, return Tree’s bracelet, then die. Dre had pointed out that doing it himself might be nicer than getting brutally murdered over and over, so he’d started to die in more… relaxed ways. He’d go through his days, find excuses to talk to Tree, then drink a refreshing glass of bleach or something the like. By the fifteenth death, he had to admit it was all starting to get to him quite a bit. 

“Get up,” Tree said, just like every morning. 

He did, but his vision was fuzzy and the room was spinning and—

“Dude? Are you okay?” Tree asked, sounding alarmed. 

“Yep, I’m—I’m fi—” he passed out before he could finish that thought, falling right into Tree’s arms. 

He woke up in a hospital room, two sets of concerned eyes over him (one more openly so than the other.)

“Dude!” Ryan called, noticing he was awake, “Are you okay? What happened?” 

“Well, this is going to sound a bit crazy, but I’m stuck in a death loop,” he said, still feeling a bit loopy himself. 

“A what?” Tree asked. 

Oh, if only she knew. He tried to explain the whole stuck-in-a-different-universe, dying-over-and-over situation as best he could—to his credit, he’d had quite a bit of practice by that point. 

“So it’s like _Groundhog Day_ ,” Ryan said. 

“What?” Tree asked. 

Carter smiled despite himself.

“You haven’t seen _Groundhog Day_?” Ryan asked, sounding almost offended. Tree simply shrugged. 

“Alright, focus on the task at hand,” Carter said, “you’ve gotta fix Sissy _today_ and stop this loop before someone kills—”

“You?” 

“Tree.” 

“Me?”

“It’s Lori,” he explained, “I tried to save you a few times but couldn’t, so I just sorta… started killing myself before she could get to you while I waited for these dorks to figure out how to fix this. Thing is I don’t know how many deaths I got left.” 

Tree gaped at him. “You—you’ve been killing yourself to save me? Why not just… let me die and live? Wouldn’t that get you out of the loop?” 

“I don’t know,” he replied, “maybe. I don’t wanna find out.” He sat up suddenly. “We can’t be here. _You_ can’t be here. Lori is going to use Tombs to kill you.” 

“The serial killer?” Ryan asked. 

“She sets him free and uses him as a scapegoat—” Tree shot him a confused look. “There’s no time. You have to get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Tree determinedly said, “you’re coming with us.” 

“They’re not just gonna let me leave.” 

Tree shrugged and smiled a gorgeous, mischievous smile. “Guess we’ll just have to sneak you out.” 

  


***

  


Tree must have had a lot of experience sneaking around, because she got him out of there way more easily than should have ever been possible. This time around, she came with him and Ryan to the lab, stood beside Carter as he explained everything to Dre and Samar and tried her best to follow as he repeated every failed algorithm back to them. 

“Damn,” she breathed when he finished reciting them. He couldn’t hold back a pleased smile at that. 

“If these are all the algorithms we’ve tried,” Dre said, standing up at once, “that means there’s only one possibility left.” 

“Then that must be the right one!” Tree excitedly exclaimed, “Do it!” 

Carter smiled delightedly at her eagerness, unable to tear his eyes away as she rushed Ryan while he tapped away on the computer.

“It’s ready,” he finally sighed, “I can send you back. Ready?” 

Carter smiled. “Yeah.” 

Ryan nodded, ready to press the button that would start the whole crazy process. 

“Carter,” Tree said, prompting Ryan to pause, his finger hovering over the button. Carter looked at her. “In this universe, do we—do we know each other?” 

Carter looked at Ryan again, giving him a nod. Ryan pressed the button and Sissy began to light up and whir. He looked back at Tree. 

“Yeah,” he said. He touched her hand with his own and she welcomed the contact, interlacing their fingers. They smiled at each other as the lights began to flicker. “Yeah, we do.” 

A blast from Sissy, the force of it forcing their hands apart, and Carter’s eyes instinctively closed as he was thrown across the room. He hit the ground and everything went silent again. He opened his eyes and turned around to find Tree, dressed as she had been on Tuesday 19th, in their own universe. It had worked. He was back. 

“Danielle,” she said, staring intensely at him. 

He frowned. “Who?” 

She smiled and yelped excitedly, hugging him with such force that they both fell backwards to the floor. 

“Hi,” she whispered, smiling tenderly at him. 

There she was. 

He grinned, pulling her even closer. “Hi.”

He couldn’t have been happier to be back.


	2. let's just live in the afterglow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to give this a sort of epilogue. Enjoy. Also fun fact they are both bi.

“You killed yourself,” Tree said slowly, “fifteen times, to save _me_?” 

“Yes,” Carter replied. 

They were sitting on his bed, thankfully alone in the room, and Tree was looking at him with the expression of a deer caught in headlights.

“Why?” 

He frowned. “What do you mean why? Why wouldn’t I?” 

“Pre-loop me was an asshole to you,” she said, “I’m sure I didn’t make it easy to be around me.” 

“You didn’t,” Carter replied. He grinned, thinking back to all her snarky responses whenever he’d approached her. “I loved it anyways.”

She gasped, her gasp quickly morphing into a smile. “That’s interesting information,” she teased. 

“Sure is,” he mumbled, leaning in to kiss her. She gave into the kiss easily, sighing happily as she parted her lips and Carter raised a hand to her chin, tilting her head just so and prompting her to put her arms around his neck as the kiss deepened. They kept kissing until both of their smiles grew too big, forcing them to stop. 

“I’m so glad I get to do this now,” Tree mumbled against his lips. 

“So am I,” Carter replied and pecked her lips again, “alternate dimension you really didn’t like me. Until the last reboot at least.” 

“She liked you,” Tree reassured him, “she was just too dumb to realize how great you are.” 

“You’re not dumb,” Carter said with an adorable pout that Tree just had to kiss off his mouth. 

“Maybe not dumb,” she conceded, “but I was shallow. I shouldn’t have needed to die a bunch of times to realize that you’re obviously the greatest guy I’ve ever met.” 

“At least it’s like, a silver lining to all this?” he prompted, “And for the record I think you’re the greatest girl I’ve ever met too. Actually, make that the greatest person.” 

“Damn, _all_ genders?” Carter nodded. “What if you met that dude from _Star Wars_? The hot one from the new movies.” 

“I know you know his name,” Carter said with a grin, “just say it. Nerd.” 

“Poe Dameron,” Tree sighed, “what if you met Poe Dameron?” 

“Well, I might have to reconsider then,” Carter said, “also, since we’re dating now, do we get a list of people we can still flirt with? ‘Cause he’s going on mine.”

Tree quirked an eyebrow, amused. “You’d waste a spot on a fictional character?” 

“Fine, just make it Oscar Isaac,” he groaned, “as long as we’re all aware that I _really_ want Poe Dameron.” 

“We’re more than aware, nerd,” Tree replied, rolling her eyes. Carter laughed, which of course meant she couldn’t hold back a laugh of her own, and they kept laughing until Tree leaned in to kiss him again, then alternated between the two for a bit, trading lazy kisses and smiles. 

“By the way,” Carter asked once they’d stopped and Tree had rested her head on his shoulder, his fingers threading in her hair, “who the hell is Danielle?” 

“She’s that girl from my sorority,” Tree replied with a groan, “the one from the news? Called Samar ‘Samosa’?” Carter nodded, seemingly remembering who she was talking about. “You were dating her in the other universe.” 

He grimaced. “I was dating her?!”

“In fairness, she did seem sweeter in that universe. In even more fairness, she was actually cheating on other-you, but y’know.” She shrugged. 

Carter gasped. “She was _cheating on me?!_ Aw, man.” 

“Hey, how do you think I felt watching you make out with her all day?” Tree retorted. 

“Well, at least I was your friend in that universe! You hated me in mine!” Carter bit back with a laugh. 

Tree stuck out her tongue at him, then her features softened and she smiled, taking Carter’s hand in hers and playing with his fingers as she spoke. “I seriously can’t believe you died for me all those times,” she muttered. 

“I know for a fact you did the same at least twice,” Carter replied. 

“Yeah, _twice_. You did it over and over.” 

“And I know you would do the same for me.” 

Tree nodded, offering him a sweet smile, then a small kiss. 

“This is pretty intense shit for like, three days of dating,” she said, jokingly, but a little serious. 

“I mean, we didn’t have the most typical relationship start, did we?” Carter pointed out with a chuckle. 

Tree shook her head, beaming. “I’m just glad we had a start at all,” she said.

“So am I,” Carter replied. He cupped Tree’s cheek with his hand, gently brushed his thumb over her lips before kissing her slowly, tenderly, like they finally had all the time in the world. He pulled back and rested his forehead against hers, his mouth curving into a big, dopey grin. “Really glad,” he whispered, and kissed her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked this, please leave kudos/comments!


End file.
